Georgia Fans Not Happy With Dooley Statue Idea

(2/14/08) An old fashioned political battle between supporters of former University of Georgia football coaching legend Vince Dooley and the President of the University of Georgia (along with the Board of regents of the state) ended Wednesday when the Regents chose to honor Dooley with a large statue and the naming of an athletic facility located away from the football stadium after the former coach.

While the move would appear to pre-empt any effort to add Dooley’s name to the existing Sanford Stadium in Athens, Ga., or name the football field in his honor, a poll conducted by InsiderAdvantage indicates little, if any, support for the move by Georgia football fans.

An InsiderAdvantage/Majority Opinion Research poll conducted February 13 of 594 Georgians - 325 of whom identified themselves as individuals who “watch, listen to, or attend University of Georgia football games and are a fan” - showed almost no support for the approved statue and naming of a section of the university away from the stadium but nearer to athletic facilities and housing (the area of campus also to be named in Dooley’s honor.)

Given the choices of adding Dooley’s name to the stadium, naming the field at the stadium after Dooley, or the statue and and naming of an entire section of the campus after Dooley but away from the stadium, support for a stadium related tribute was overwhelming.

Add name to stadium: 48%
Name field for Dooley: 45%
Erect statue and name complex after Dooley: 7%

The survey was weighted for age, race, and gender. It also identified political affiliation. The margin of error is +/- 6%.

Those who identified themselves as Republicans were most adamant about adding the former football coach’s name to the existing stadium with support at 53%. Republicans dominate the state legislature and the state has a Republican Governor, Sonny Perdue.

Perdue expressed support for the statue and naming of the athletic facilities. Both Perdue and the university president have resisted efforts by the legislature to add Dooley’s name to either the stadium or the field, citing rules requiring a yet-to-expire period of time before university employees can have facilities named in their honor.

As one Republican legislator who preferred to remain unidentified put it: “The fact is, Vince Dooley will, like all of us, someday move on to his great reward and when he does, these fans will likely tear down those famous hedges if the state doesn’t add his name to the stadium. It just won’t happen under a governor who was a walk-on who Dooley did not play and a university president who has spared with Dooley for years. They just plain don’t like each other and that is that.”